The Binary Circumstance

While Christians await of the second coming of Christ, I’d bet my money on the coming oil shortage.

National Geographic has an article on The End of Cheap Oil.

You wouldn’t know it from the hulking SUVs and traffic-clogged freeways of the United States, but we’re in the twilight of plentiful oil. There’s no global shortage yet; far from it. The world can still produce so much crude that the current price of about $30 for a 42-gallon barrel would plummet if the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not limit production. This abundance of oil means, for now, that oil is cheap. In the United States, where gasoline taxes average 43 cents a gallon (instead of dollars, as in Europe and Japan), a gallon of gasoline can be cheaper than a bottle of water—making it too cheap for most people to bother conserving. While oil demand is up everywhere, the U.S. remains the king of consumers, slurping up a quarter of the world’s oil—about three gallons a person every day—even though it has just 5 percent of the population.

Yet as the Enterprise drillers know, slaking the world’s oil thirst is harder than it used to be. The old sources can’t be counted on anymore. On land the lower 48 states of the U.S. are tapped out, producing less than half the oil they did at their peak in 1970. Production from the North Slope of Alaska and the North Sea of Europe, burgeoning oil regions 20 years ago, is in decline. Unrest in Venezuela and Nigeria threatens the flow of oil. The Middle East remains the mother lode of crude, but war and instability underscore the perils of depending on that region.

And so oil companies are searching for new supplies and braving high costs, both human and economic. Making gambles like Thunder Horse and venturing into West Africa and Russia, they are still finding oil in quantities to gladden a Hummer owner’s heart. But in the end the quest for more cheap oil will prove a losing game: Not just because oil consumption imposes severe costs on the environment, health, and taxpayers, but also because the world’s oil addiction is hastening a day of reckoning.

Humanity’s way of life is on a collision course with geology—with the stark fact that the Earth holds a finite supply of oil. The flood of crude from fields around the world will ultimately top out, then dwindle. It could be 5 years from now or 30: No one knows for sure, and geologists and economists are embroiled in debate about just when the “oil peak” will be upon us. But few doubt that it is coming. “In our lifetime,” says economist Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University, who is 46, “we will have to deal with a peak in the supply of cheap oil.”

This morning comes the news that attacks have halted Iraq’s export of oil for at least another week.

Attacks on oil pipelines forced all oil exports from southern Iraq to a complete halt, a senior Iraqi oil official said Monday.

Oil flows out of the country’s key southern pipelines ceased late Sunday, an official from South Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity.

The official said that exports were not likely to resume for at least one week, he said.

Perhaps this is what General Tommy Franks meant when he said that a quick victory in Iraq could lead to “catastrophic success.”

Catastrophic success is like a premature ejaculation. Your success is your failure.

I think that’s what he meant.

What happened to the law of identity which dictates that A=A? This what happens when mystics rule the world.

See my previous post Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash.

Jesus Christ died 2000 years ago but his legacy continues to disrupt the rightful, moral course of human history.

Today in Athens, a self-identified Christian, Cornelius Horan, attacked Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil and pushed him off the course into the crowd. De Lima was running in first place at that point in the race but ended up coming in third, winning the bronze.

De Lima pulled away from the pack a little over halfway through the competition, which — over difficult and often steep terrain — traced the ancient route that gives the race its name.

De Lima, a two-time Pan American champion who was 47th in the 1996 Olympic marathon, stretched the lead to as much as 46 seconds before Baldini, Keflezighi, and Kenyan Paul Tergat began to narrow the gap.

As the runners went through the streets of Athens, to the cheers of flag-waving onlookers, the intruder came from the runner’s left and pushed him to the side, all the way to the curb and into the crowd. It appeard that spectators freed Lima before police arrived and took the intruder into custody.

The intruder had a piece of paper attached to his back bearing the message: “The Grand Prix Priest Israel Fulfillment of Prophecy Says the Bible.???

Police identified him as Cornelius Horan, a defrocked Irish priest. In July 2003, Horan, in a costume similar to the one he wore Sunday, ran onto the track at the British Grand Prix in the middle of the race and stayed there for more than 20 seconds, forcing racers to swerve around him. He was carrying a sign that said, “read the Bible — the Bible is always right.???

If you’ve seen the video today on TV of Horan running onto the track at the British Grand Prix, you know that this man is a certified nutcase. I would call him a certified Christian nutcase but that would be redundant. (This article about the incident contains a still picture.)

Drivers going as much as 200MPH had to swerve to avoid hitting him. Too bad he wasn’t run over during that stunt.

Now, the Bible toting Horan has destroyed another man’s dream. All the effort and years that de Lima has put into winning the Olympic Gold were taken away by a stupid religious fanatic.

NBC repeatedly stated that Horan was not a member of any organized terrorist organization because in both cases he acted alone. I find that analysis just a bit disingenuous.

Religion is very organized and anybody paying any attention to world events knows that it is often associated with terrorism.

What exactly is the big difference between a religious fanatic who acts alone and those that act as an organized group other than their number? Their premises and the results of their conduct are pretty much the same. They believe that their beliefs are true in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. They steal life, joy and dreams from those who work hard for what they have in life. From the rest of us, they steal the enjoyment of watching others excel at what they do.

While religion itself does not always equate to terrorism, it is fundamentally irrational. Irrationality always causes damage. Unfortunately, the damage is not always done to the believers themselves but to innocent bystanders on the road of life.

Maybe Horan should run for President of the United States. Judging from the fact that President Bush is sitting in the White House now getting signals from God, a majority of the American people strongly support those who believe that “the Bible is always right.” They elect Bible-believing Christians to the highest offices in the land.

Why waste your time disrupting Olympic Marathons and car races, when your irrational beliefs can cause so much more damage when exercised from a position of great power? When you’re delusional, it pays to think big.

I love to read the labels on over-the-counter medication packages.

I got bored with novels, newspapers and magazines a long time ago, so now I do labels.

Being notoriously cheap–actually, I prefer to think of myself as thrifty–when I’m at the drugstore I always look for the Rite-Aid, Safeway or Walgreen’s brand of cold or allergy medicine if it exists.

You know how when you’re looking for a decongestant or antihistamine or a cold medicine you have your major brands like Tylenol, Bayer, NyQuil, etc.? After I find those, I look for the store-brand equivalent. It usually says something like “compare to the active ingredients in Tylenol” or Bayer, or Nyquil or something like that.

So I do. Just like they told me to.

I compare the active ingredients and if they’re the same, I buy the cheaper brand, which is ALWAYS the store brand. Well, maybe not always, ’cause sometimes they try to trick you on the number of pills in the package which makes it difficult to do a direct price comparison. But most of the time, there is a store-brand box with the same number of pills of the same strength and it’s always cheaper, often by a couple of bucks.

While I was at my local Rite-Aid yesterday, I was looking for some Acetaminophen, which is Tylenol, and noticed something called Tylenol PM which is for pain and sleep. There’s also a Rite-Aid version called Acetaminophen PM, which was cheaper, but the active ingredients are the same. Of course, there’s also just plain old Rite-Aid Acetaminophen which is cheaper than the Tylenol brand.

The label on the acetominophen/sleep packages say they contain two active ingredients: Acetaminophen (for pain) and Diphenhydramine HCL (for sleep).

I wondered what Diphenhydramine HCL is and if it has terrible side-effects or anything like that. So I looked it up on google.

Well guess what? Diphenhydramine HCL is an antihistamine, the active ingredient in Benadryl. (Also see here.) So I check my box of Rite-Aid “Allergy Medication” and it says, “Compare to the active ingredient in Benadryl.” It also says Antihistamine/Diphenhydramine HCL 25 mg.

When you buy Benadryl or its store-brand equivalents you’re being sold an antihistamine and cautioned that it may cause drowsiness. But if you buy Tylenol PM or the store-brand equivalent, you are being told it’s a sleep aid but they don’t tell you it’s an antihistamine.

What if you didn’t want an antihistamine? It’s the same active ingredient, just different packaging.

Next time I go back to the store I’ll have to compare the prices to see if they make you pay a higher price for either the allergy packaging or the sleep packaging. You can also buy diphenhydramine HCL as an over-the-counter sleep aid (I think it was called Tylenol Sleep) without the acetaminophen for pain relief. This would be the exact equivalent of Benadryl, except for additives like coloring, etc.

Depending on the price, I might be better off to buy the allergy packaging if I want a sleep aid or to buy the sleep aid if I really want an antihistamine. All that really matters is the active ingredient and the dosage.

You see? You learn somethin’ new every day.

Flibbertigibbit links to a NYT quote from John Kerry that had me ROFL. How long will it take the Bush campaign to get this into a commercial?

Kerry says:

“The truth, which is what elections are all about, is that the tax burden of the middle class has gone up while the tax burden of the middle class has gone down.”

This has got to be a personal best for Kerry. He managed to change positions in mid-sentence.

There’s a lot of talk about personal bests in the Olympics. I think I’ll go watch them.